Catherine Benincasa was born in Siena in 1347. She encountered her first vision of Christ when she was 5 or 6 years old and took a vow of chastity at 7. As the story goes she became heavily involved in religion, developed a working relationship with the pope and gathered herself quite a flock of Christians. She died in Rome at the age of 33 and was canonized by Pope Pius II in 1461, making her one of Italy's two patron saints. Now here is where it really get...

  When I was a lad I was told my camera would explode and that I would go blind if I ever took a photo of the inside of a church. Yesterday, Elenka and I went to St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican where I found that that has all changed. Now priests pose for tourists' photos in front of chapel altars and visiting nuns snap their own shots like my rules never existed.   After a twenty minute walk we arrived at St. Peter's just after seven in the m...

 I once had a friend who'd moved with his parents from Rome to Canada in the mid-50s. I thought he was being rude when he told me that as a 10 year-old, he thought he'd died and gone to a cold, cold hell, as his and his parents' train chugged west across the Great-White North. I can see now that he wasn't trying to be rude at all. After Elenka and I had visited the obligatory sights of Rome we settled back with a cold beer and a sigh of relief. ...

Funchal was built on the side of a mountain/hill and it looks beautiful as your ship pulls into port. Once ashore we walked 1.5 - 2 miles, where we took a cable-car high above, to a little town that looks down on Funchal and the sea. There's a church at the top that may or may not have Charles I of Austria, the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, entombed. Charles I died here, just a couple of years after being sent into exile. Anyway, Elenka and I ...

We walked back and forth from our ship - close to a mile each way - to the town of Philipsburg a couple of times while at dock. Once to look at the expensive duty-free shops, and once to swim. The touts here are quite friendly and don't hassle cruisers like you might expect. But that wouldn't be nearly enough reason to stay here. By early afternoon the karaoke bars start to compete with one another. And the participants here, are no better than the ones a...